By Kay Wicker/Originally published by thegrio
When D’Angelo released his third studio album, “Black Messiah,” in 2014, it debuted on the Billboard R&B charts at No. 1 and the Billboard 200 charts in the No. 5 spot. The album, which launched soulful hits like “Really Love” and “Sugah Daddy,” has left fans hungry for more. Ten years later, D’Angelo is reportedly back at work in the studio again.
The musician’s longtime friend and collaborator, producer and Tony! Toni! Toné! co-founder Raphael Saadiq, revealed what D’Angelo has been up to and more during an appearance on the latest episode of Rolling Stone’s “Music Now” podcast.
“D’s in a good space,” Saadiq said, adding, “He’s excited. He’s like, ‘You gotta play bass. I’ve got this track. I’m telling you, you got to get on it. It got your name all over it.’ … He’s working on six pieces right now and he seems super excited.”
Elaborating further, Saadiq said D’Angelo is working on something major: a track recorded years ago by Linwood Rose, the short-lived ‘90s R&B supergroup that included D’Angelo, Saadiq, and Q-Tip. “I think it’s going to be a record on D’Angelo’s new album when it comes out; a record that we all did together,” Saadiq explained.
He continued, “Linwood Rose lives. I’m playing bass, D’s playing, me and D is singing backgrounds. It’s funky as hell, too. It’s like, D is a bad boy. … It’s aged well. Good music ages well.”
Saadiq and D’Angelo have been collaborating since the single “Lady” on D’Angelo’s debut album; Saadiq later produced and co-wrote D’Angelo’s biggest hit, “Untitled (How Does It Feel)” from his 2000 hit album, “Voodoo.” Saadiq told the publication the two artists initially connected over their shared gospel background.
“I think more of his soul came from his gospel roots, not Prince,” Saadiq noted. “But Prince had a huge gospel background, too. He was able to camouflage it a lot in his songwriting. And I think D’Angelo is the same way, too.”
D’Angelo isn’t the only artist Saadiq had intel on. He also shared what it was like to work with Beyoncé on “Cowboy Carter.”
According to him, the single “Bodyguard,” which began as a potential solo project for him, almost didn’t happen. Saadiq recalled a time when he was sharing music from his Dropbox with the “Texas Hold ‘Em” songstress.
He said, “‘Bodyguard’ came up for a second — like the intro — and I went to the next one, and she was like ‘Go back, go back!’ And then what she added vocally was bars up from what I did. She sounded like Reba McEntire; felt like Aretha. She took what I did and completed it.”
